Wednesday 3 October 2007 11.31 EDT
First published on Wednesday 3 October 2007 11.31 EDT

I'm married to an ardent Liverpool fan so, trust me, I get to watch a lot of mediocre football. Like a lot of ex-pats, we spend all weekend glued to the TV, watching Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea grind out one-nothings against the stalwart Premier League makeweights.

Now and then, of course, you get a flash of genius, of ability gone berserk. If you're really lucky, you get to see a game that reminds you why you fell in love with football in the first place. And why all the other sports are just sports.

The women's World Cup semi-final between Brazil and the USA was such a game. In the second half Brazil played the sort of football that makes you laugh out loud. The 21-year-old forward Marta stood over the ball, feinting and jinking while American defenders twitched like rabbits. Then she turned it on, ripping the US defence apart again and again with aggression, speed and moments of amazing skill.

There were glimpses of Zola, Best, Henry and Gascoigne. Behind her the rest of the Brazil team fell into an arrogant, relaxed, devastating rhythm. This was football beyond gender. This was magic.

And I must be insane writing this in a public forum. One of the saddest lessons of this women's World Cup is how threatened the men of football-playing nations are by the idea of women playing football. Posters on these pages have snarked, sniggered, chortled, nitpicked and willy-waggled. It's all been a little bit sad.

The idea that the top-flight women's game - given space, time and money, and freed from the talent-wasting sexism and conservatism that blights the sport in backward nations like the UK and Argentina - might one day become at least as entertaining as top-flight men's football terrifies a lot of men. Particularly those who live in societies where football is indivisibly interwoven into notions of masculinity and male superiority.

But then again, this is football - a sport where the world is forever being turned upside down. And while the least insecure and most women-friendly soccer cultures - Scandinavia, Germany and the US - continue to dominate the game, it's macho Brazil that has produced the women's team who have shown us how this game might be played in the future.

Did I mention Marta already? Did I rant a bit? Did I tell you that she plays for a Swedish side and - until last Saturday - hardly anybody in Brazil knew her name? And did I also mention that she could play you off the park? Yes, you. Stop looking around. I mean you.

Because here's the rub. The real reason so many men hate women's football is because they hate the idea that a woman might be better than them. Well tough, Marta is. More than that, she's probably better than at least half the players in the team you support. And she's not the only one. You can uncross your legs now.

If a player of Marta's ability and potential was the product of decades of Brazillian sports equality she'd be remarkable. The fact she's not - she learned her game playing futsal against boys - is astounding. And indicative of a massive pool of untapped talent. The only question worth asking is: how much female talent has world football missed out on thanks to decades of hostility, stupidity and ignorance?

A young American soccer-playing male once told a friend of mine: "Any male player could beat any female player because they're just stronger." A little later he told a story about US women's soccer legend Mia Hamm turning up to a kick-about with members of his men's college team. "None of us could get near her; she was amazing." He had to have the contradiction pointed out to him.